The photo below is of my husband, Kwan, and me after we completed yesterday's "Change the World" workout with my gym, RVA Performance Training. In response to the current uprising, the massive shift in consciousness, and continuation of the centuries-long fight by black people (and their allies) against systemic racism, RVA PT severed their affiliation with CrossFit (national) in solidarity with their BIPOC coaches and athletes (as well as the rest of us who are in support of them). AND they put together an open-to-all, donation-based class which has raised over $11,000 for the RVA Food Justice Alliance. 
 

It was an incredibly powerful experience for many reasons. And it reminded me, once again, that not only can we do hard things, we MUST do hard things. It’s only there, in the facing head-on and working through the hard things, that we have the potential to grow, to expand, to change, and to find freedom. 
 

We work with this within the context of our yoga and meditation practices. But when we fail to understand how to take that inner learning out into the world, we are failing to be vehicles for consciousness as these ancient practices have always intended. 

Do not fear discomfort. Move toward it, with love in your heart.

 

   

So many of you have reached out to me and expressed similar feelings and experiences as white people seeing and wrestling with racial injustice, inequity, and how to best show up in this work. You are having new recognitions, new clarity, new heartbreak. It is so important to root down into that newness, into the energy that has recently been tapped, so that you can stay grounded in change.

I feel grateful that I am in a place to be able to support you all in this critically important work of uncovering and working with unconscious (or conscious) bias and conditioning that is based in white supremacy ideology. Not one of us is free of it, though we all sit somewhere on a spectrum of varying degrees.

I have developed a workshop series called "Undoing Unconscious Racism" that includes the following components:

• Group workshop #1 (June 20, 9-10:30am)

  • Understanding unconscious thinking (and unconscious bias)

  • Ruth King’s framework / Absolute Reality vs Relative Reality / Mindfulness Practice

  • Importance of being guided/led by BIPOC

  • I am racist vs I am A racist

  • Divide into Racial Affinity groups (5-6 people per group)

 

• Racial Affinity Groups (meet 2x/month) 

  • Self-guided / self-scheduled

 

• Group meeting #2 (July 27, 9am-10am)

  • Check-in / Group Coaching

 

• Group meeting #3 (Sept 12, 9am-10am)

  • Check-in / Group Coaching

  • Resources for taking action - how to move from here

I am accepting sliding scale donations for this workshop series. My intention is not to profit off of this work so donations will be funneled to organizations supporting anti-racist work locally and nationally (groups are TBD - I am still researching). Donations of any amount will be accepted from $5-$250 - please pay what you are able and willing to invest in this work (for yourself and for the movement, in general).

Requirements for participation:
- purchase and read Ruth King's Mindful of Race (I've heard that copies are hard to find right now - I encourage you to order from one of these independent, black-owned shops.) This does not have to be read in its entirety prior to the workshop.

- commit to the 3 workshop sessions AND to at least 8 months with your Racial Affinity Group - we will discuss the importance of this during our first workshop (these will all be VIRTUAL by way of Zoom, so you can do this from anywhere in the world!)

- be open to the experience and to learning

In order to register, please Venmo me @EllieBurkeLife with the amount of your donation and please put "Anti-Racist Workshop" in the memo. If you do not use Venmo, you can mail a check to Ellie Burke, 2902 West Cary St. 2nd Floor Richmond VA 23221 - please just email me to let me know that you've sent payment.

Once I receive your donation, I will send you a confirmation email with the Zoom link for our June 20th meeting.

Please don't hesitate to reach out with any questions at all. And, again, thank you for doing this... Oh! And lastly, please forward to anyone else you think might be interested in participating. I am specifically in need of finding more WHITE MEN to join to help build out an affinity group for them.

, Ellie